Short answers, pulled from the story.
Jersey City is known as the most ethnically diverse city in the United States, with more than 40 languages spoken in more than 52% of homes and 42.5% of residents born outside the country as of 2020. It is also known as Wall Street West, a major financial hub, and for its history as the primary entry point for tens of millions of immigrants who passed through Communipaw Terminal after processing at Ellis Island.
The Battle of Paulus Hook took place on the 19th of August 1779, when Major Henry Lee led approximately 300 Continental Army soldiers in a surprise assault on a British-occupied fort at Paulus Hook in what is now Jersey City. The Patriots took 158 British prisoners and damaged the fort before withdrawing at daylight. The attack is considered a small but meaningful strategic victory that forced the British to abandon plans for seizing additional rebel positions in the New York area.
During the 19th century, four main Underground Railroad routes through New Jersey converged in Jersey City. Escaped slaves found refuge at the Hilton-Holden House on Bergen Hill, the last remaining station in the city, before being hidden in wagons to the waterfront and Morris Canal Basin. Abolitionists then hired ferry and coal boats to transport them to Canada or New England. An estimated 60,000 former slaves traveled through Jersey City on this route.
The Black Tom explosion occurred on the 30th of July 1916, when German spies sabotaged an American munitions depot in Jersey City to prevent ammunition from reaching Allied forces in World War I. The blast killed 7 people, damaged the Statue of Liberty, and registered as an earthquake measuring between 5.0 and 5.5 on the Richter scale, with tremors felt as far away as Maryland.
Frank Hague served as mayor of Jersey City from 1917 to 1947, thirty years during which he wielded near-total control over the city's politics, judiciary, and patronage networks. Despite an annual salary that never exceeded eight thousand five hundred dollars, Hague maintained a fourteen-room apartment in Jersey City, a suite at the Plaza Hotel, a summer home on the Jersey Shore, and traveled to Europe annually in the royal suites of ocean liners.
The area that became Jersey City was settled by the Dutch in the 17th century and called Pavonia, meaning 'land of the peacock.' The village of Bergen was officially chartered on the 5th of September 1661, as the first local civil government in what would become New Jersey. Jersey City was incorporated in 1838 and given its present name at that time.